FSU to shrink payroll by 250, student body by 2,000

The latest in budget-whacking college news comes from FSU, alma mater to many of the lawmakers who have been cutting universities' state funding.

FSU trustees later this week are expected to approve a $32-million budget reduction plan that calls for shrinking the payroll by 250 positions, cutting enrollment by 2,000 students, and reducing some students services and campus maintenance programs.

President T.K. Wetherell says even with the student enrollment reduction (1,200 freshmen, 800 transfers), FSU will begin fall classes with fewer faculty and staff, larger classes, even reduced services like mail delivery, lawn mowing and trash pickup around campus.

And while the university continues its Pathways to Excellence program for recruiting top research faculty from around the world, the initiative will now take two years longer than expected. Meanwhile, at least 62 faculty have left FSU in the past year -- 27 of them already tenured and 35 on their way there -- in many cases for better-paying jobs in states with less economic uncertainty.

Meanwhile, at least 62 professors have left since August (27 tenured, 35 tenure-earning), many for higher-paying jobs elsewhere.

Comments

Maybe T.K. should sell the $72 million 168,000 sq. ft. five story chemistry building FSU just finished.

[me]

Is anyone surprised? Why don't they get some of the football players to find them some money so they can keep the employees?

The football program generates most of the money that it takes to run the athletic dept and in good years pours money back into economics. The same is true at uf. The state is fortunate this is true - the pain would be even greater if the athletics programs weren't successful.